State Treasurer Riley Moore today announced he has joined a national coalition of State Treasurers, Auditors and Financial Officers to oppose President Joe Biden’s nomination of Sarah Bloom Raskin to a key position with the Federal Reserve.
“Sarah Bloom Raskin has made clear on multiple occasions that she wants to use the power of the Fed to direct capital based on her personal social agenda rather than the demands of the economy,” Treasurer Moore said. “We cannot allow President Biden to turn the Federal Reserve into a radical central planning politburo aimed at reshaping our society – we must reject this nominee.”
Treasurer Moore joined a coalition of 24 Treasurers, Auditors and Financial Officers from 21 states to encourage President Biden to withdraw Raskin’s nomination to be Vice-Chair for Supervision at the Federal Reserve Bank.
“It is clear that Ms. Raskin is willing to place the growth and stability of the U.S. economy at risk to achieve her preferred social outcomes,” the coalition wrote.
Raskin, a Duke University law professor, has been outspoken in advocacy for the Federal Reserve and other financial agencies to use their regulatory powers to stifle the flow of capital to the coal, oil and natural gas industries and funnel it toward less reliable energy technologies.
In a May 2020 New York Times op-ed titled “Why is the Fed Spending So Much Money on a Dying Industry?,” Raskin argued the Federal Reserve should use its immense economic power to actively withdraw capital from traditional energy sources like coal, oil and natural gas, and instead direct it toward less reliable, unproven emerging technologies.
Treasurer Moore said Congress made very clear the Federal Reserve should constrain its focus to two explicit targets: protecting America from inflation and promoting stable economic growth – goals that would be undermined by using the Fed to direct radical anti-carbon energy policies.
“The American people are already suffering from generationally high inflation, and this will only be made worse by a centrally planned push toward more expensive, less reliable forms of energy,” Treasurer Moore said. “It will also destroy the economies of energy-producing states like West Virginia, damaging the growth for our national economy – which depends on a reliable electrical grid – making us more dependent on foreign sources of energy.
“One needs only to look at what’s happening in Eastern Europe and Ukraine right now to see the dangers of losing energy independence,” Treasurer Moore said. “The European countries that President Biden and Sarah Raskin so desperately want to emulate decided to self-implode their coal, oil and natural gas sectors to move toward less reliable sources, which has allowed Russia to simply move in and impose its will in the region.”
Treasurer Moore said Raskin’s nomination demonstrates President Biden is attempting to use the Federal Reserve to advance an agenda that has been repeatedly rejected by Congress.
“President Biden knows he can’t shove his Green New Deal and Build Back Better social agenda through Congress, so he’s trying to push it through in other ways,” Treasurer Moore said. “We cannot allow radical nominees like Sarah Bloom Raskin to force their radical, anti-capitalist values on our American way of life.”